Filial-guardian
Basic Information Name: Walter Delques Username: filial-guardian Series: Tales of Legendia RP: Luceti Age: 18 Height: 5'8" (He’s still growing, though :|) Weight: 127 lbs. Hair: Blond Eyes: Blue Birthdate: August 1 (Leo) Birthplace: A Ferines village in Crusand Weapon: Hand-to-hand fighting, crystal eres (restored to 50% power in Luceti), Filial magic (in Luceti) Occupation: Guardian of the Merines Notes: Left ear is pierced twice on the lobe Background Information Pre-Game History Walter was born in a Ferines village that sat within a Crusand river delta. His parents were Laurent Orelses, the waiting Merines guardian, and Felicia Urelnes, the only daughter of the village’s master water flautist. While his birth was greeted with joy and high expectations, it also brought sorrow—his mother died shortly after from fatigue. His father, already a distant man by nature, became despondent and completely at a loss as to what to do with this new son. He only knew his duty, and he would teach his son many things once he was old enough to understand. But now, in his infancy? He wouldn’t be able to take care of him. Walter’s maternal grandmother, Presetta Erelques, stepped in at that time to raise him. He spent his first few years surrounded by the flowers, baking, and music of his grandmother’s household, with occasional visits from his father. He learned about the Merines and Nerifes, the Kingdom of Terises and the Orerines, and about the duty of the Merines’ protector over those years. Even before his Naming Ceremony, in which Walter was bestowed his Ferines true name Delques and his teriques was shown to the village, his father began teaching him how to use his crystal eres in combat. Unlike his distant familial presence, Laurent was a fairly harsh teacher, and Walter earned many bruises early on trying to manipulate his eres and teriques for physical attacks. But he learned, and he began to thrive in those fights beyond any sort of domestic chore his grandmother had set him upon. It was an idyllic childhood for Walter, learning to play the flute from his grandmother and learning about his future duty from his father. Rather, it was peaceful on the home front. Among the villagers, the ever-waiting Merines protectors no longer retained any sense of respect, and Walter was constantly taunted by those around his age—about the Merines that was nowhere to be found, about his father’s despondence over the fact he had wasted his life, about his own doomed future. Though initially shy and hurt by this taunting, Walter got into fights as he grew older, both verbal and physical, with the kids—not just because of their hurtful words, but because of his increasingly-quick temper. He decided he didn’t need friends if they could only attack their legendary savior. He focused all of his energy and passion into becoming a strong protector for the future Merines. And then, when he was 15 years old, Walter lost everything he had ever known. He had been out beyond the village barrier with his father, training. An Orerines merchant, who had been taken in to the village after he was found wandering nearby, was being seen off by the elders. Crusand soldiers off of small boats appeared from beyond the forest—the merchant’s leaving was their signal to advance. With the barrier down, the troops stormed the village quickly, snatching up children and beating down adults that tried to resist. Houses were set ablaze. Laurent, seeing the fire from the forest, told Walter to stay put—to wait for him while he investigated what was going on. It was obvious that things would get dangerous, and Walter restlessly waited even as he could see smoke rising above the trees. He flew up a high tree to look down upon the burning village, looking at the waves of troops in horror. He never saw his father again. Walter finally made a mad dash back towards the village as night began to fall. The soldiers had cleared out, leaving the burned and gutted remnants of his carefully-guarded home. His own house was utterly destroyed, and his grandmother was nowhere to be found. In his grief and despair, Walter didn’t move from the ruins an entire week—subconsciously hoping that someone would come back. His already-volatile temper was cultivated into undying racism in the charred remains of his home, driven by the Orerines’ deception and nightmares of his father and grandmother being tortured (along with years of exposure to the racist beliefs of most Ferines). It could easily be said that his village was more racist than other villages simply because they were surrounded by the violent Crusandians. No one came back in those seven days—though he did not know it, Walter was the only one not either killed or captured in the raid. The only exception to this was a baby that had been hidden prior to the attack, and whose cries tormented Walter while he tried to search for it. (He never found the baby and is haunted by the rather traumatic time he spent scouring the ruins.) When he finally forced himself into moving from the village, Walter took to his teriques and flew far beyond the borders of Crusand—not that he knew about the political boundaries in his isolated ignorance. He only stopped out of exhaustion in the country of Gadoria, where he was more than once accosted by monsters and curious merchants. It was during this time of exhaustion that Walter had the luck to meet a Ferines man who had also recently lost his home. His name was Maurits Welnes. Maurits took the young Walter under his wing, telling him he was from the same village as the Merines and that she was alive, but on the run after Crusand’s attack on their own village. They needed to be prepared for the off-chance that the Merines was captured and brought to the Legacy. And so Walter was given something to cling to after losing everything but his own life: a mission. A mission to protect the legendary Shining One who had finally ascended after 4,000 years. To do so, Walter took the guise of an Orerines and journeyed to the Legacy, where he explored the various ruins of the Kingdom of Terises, including the Waterways. He traveled between the mainland and the Legacy to meet with Maurits’ various Ferines contacts, emphasizing his role as the Merines’ protector and his bloodline role as the commander of the Ferines army. But he mostly waited upon the Legacy, honing his skills and sending out his teriques to patrol the waters, even as he reported his lack of findings to Maurits. As much as he wanted to search the mainland and actively look for the Merines, he understood the logic to Maurits’ plans and continued his patrolling of the Legacy. That is how it was for the next two years of his life, until fate (in the form of Stella Telmes) brought Senel Coolidge and Shirley Fennes in contact with his zephyr teriques and, shortly thereafter, the Legacy. Point in Canon He arrived in Luceti and the dressing room post-Chapter 7. That is, post-Royal Automaton battle. So yes, he confessed all his angst to Senel of all people. How sorry is that? Recent Happenings As of October 1, 2008: Several happenings have changed Walter's character in both Luceti and the dressing room. In Luceti, the The End experiment reemphasized his ability to work with humans (and the few Orerines in Luceti) towards a common goal. (Not that he likes Orerines.) The Rapture experiment, which took Shirley back to the Legacy for a day, led to a confrontation between the two and Walter's unfortunate realization that he can in fact become upset with the Merines. He didn't deal well with this realization, and drank to the point that he fell asleep in the village fountain, which in turn upset Shirley. The Chatterbox experiment led to the awkward revelation that Shirley had, somehow, developed feelings for Walter. Walter, still not used to the idea of friends (and definitely not used to the idea of love), stammered his way through the conversation and eventually admitted that he may in fact like Shirley (because he loves to make her happy). Beyond his relationship with Shirley, Walter has also met and managed to offend Madame Musette by inferring that her relatives probably killed Ferines. Personality UNDER CONSTRUCTION ...This is gonna require a lot of thinking. :| Walter, growing up under his grandmother's care, was a shy and quiet child who was raised to be respectful towards his elders and chivalrous towards women. He was well-mannered and helped with variety of domestic chores to help his grandmother, some of which included cooking, sewing, and crocheting (read: yes, he can actually make those doilies "Wally" made). Seeming to emphasize what kind of boy he was in his youth was the fact that he started playing a water flute, the instrument his grandmother was a master at. His father was not a constant figure in Walter's early youth, seeing as he did not live in the same house as his son and mother-in-law. His father's visits consisted of being taught about the outside world -- the harsh fighting between the Orerines nations, the long-dreaded fear that the Orerines would wipe out the Ferines, and the very few Ferines who journeyed out to trade with merchants. Laurent Orelses was a stoic figure by nature and showed little affection for his young son, but seemed to soften when he spoke about the legend of the Merines, the Shining One who would save the Ferines from their need to live in fear. Walter enjoyed those times and soon looked forward to hearing about the Merines, especially once he learned that someday he would take up father's mantle of guardian. The Merines was a flashpoint subject even back then. Trying to interact with the other children of the village became a sore subject for Walter no sooner than his first encounter. As soon as the kids learned that he was the son of the proclaimed captain of the Merines' guard, he was ridiculed and taunted for believing in the 4,000-year-old myth. By then, Walter was in true believer of the myths and grew upset; he threw himself at the older kids despite his inability to fight, which always ended up with his grandmother taking care of him at home. A split lip, bruised knuckles, and two black eyes later, his grandmother finally told Walter to stop getting into fights. This quickly led to the boy simply staying at home to stay out of trouble. All of this happened before the boy turned seven years old. Walter's teriques appeared right before his seventh birthday -- the earliest of all the children in the village, as well as the earliest that any of the elders would recall on during his Naming Ceremony. His father took particular interest in the fact that Walter's teriques was black; it was rare for the Ferines, born of the holy sea, to have such a dark teriques. Where some would see a curse, Laurent saw a special gift of Nerifes: a sign that his son's teriques was born from the deepest depths of the ocean, where the waters were still dark. From this observation, Walter's true name originated: the black wings. Delques. Relationships Luceti Senel Coolidge: The bane of his existence. ...They get along disturbingly well, in Luceti. We're all just waiting for the inevitable flashpoint. Shirley Fennes: The Merines. Walter tends to stalk her and fluster her without even meaning to. He is understandably very protective of her. In the dressing room, he and Shirley have confessed their feelings for each other (in the strangest of ways ever) and are dating, though they haven't discussed the matter with ... anyone else, really. In Luceti, they have awkwardly confessed their feelings, but have not officially moved beyond that. Stella Telmes: For the longest time, the only Ferines who he could confide in. Their relationship seems lukewarm at best, outside of their shared culture. They do not interact as much as Walter does with Senel. Dressing Room All Normas: Walter hates them all. He's disgusted by the idea that an AU version of himself is friends with one of them. He will never admit that he helped out the Norma in Luceti after she was kidnapped by the Malnosso. He refers to all of them as "bubble-headed fluff-brain Orerines," or some variation thereof. He rated the collective Normas with a zero on an attractiveness scale in an ooc truth-telling meme. Chloe Valens: The one member of Senel's group who Walter tolerates enough to have civil conversation with. Unsurprisingly, things sometimes devolve into Walter yelling and Chloe calling him an idiot. He seems to be completely unaware of the fact that he refers to himself as "not a complete idiot" when around her. In an ooc meme, he was forced to admit that he rates Chloe an 8 on an attractiveness scale. Chloe Valens (younger): A decidedly-different Chloe than the one Walter normally interacts with. Walter finds her a little on the irritating side, but tolerates her more because they started talking while his anger was still "missing" (overloaded after the dark necklace incident). Madame Musette: The one person Walter has confided in about most of his troubles. He feels drawn to her grandmotherly aura and the fact that she seems rather close-lipped about anything he talks to her about. On the Harvest Moon scale, they are currently at a ♥ (green heart). Martelim: Besides crying babies, the one person (thing?) that Walter is afraid of. He is quite literally paralyzed with fear by her threats and sheer presence. This has led to some disturbing happenings, like near-death beatings, brainwashing, and rape. Ironically, he partly owes Martelim for his current relationship with Shirley. Princess Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lanvaldear: Annoyed greatly by her entirely righteous indignation. Their arguments are reminiscent of words bouncing off two brick walls. Noishe (Aeros): A small, green bird who Walter can hear through his Filial ability to talk to animals. Because Walter doesn't judge animals the same way he judges humans, he's a lot more tolerant towards this Noishe's curiosity. Noishe (Fae): The "human" version of Noishe, who Walter met through the Aeros Noishe. He is easily annoyed by this Noishe's invasiveness, but for some reason Noishe decides Walter is a nice guy and befriends him. Walter has yet to acknowledge him as a friend in return. Sven: Through him exists a hatred with the passion of a million burning suns. This is a totally different hatred from Senel; whereas Walter wants Senel to die in a fire, he wants to throw Sven off a very high cliff. With jagged rocks at the bottom. Category:Characters